“Can I call you Mommy?” That was the first thing tiny Amanda Gilmore asked her new mother at the adoption center.

“People think that their mothers are great for doing multiple things: driving them to baseball, taking them shopping, volunteering at school and those normal things. But, that’s not my mom,” wrote Amanda, now an Encinitas sixth grader, in tribute to her adoptive mom.

“My parents … chose me. A little girl, with no love in her life, no mom, nobody to care for her. My ‘mom,’ just an average woman, decided not to have a child by birth, but by choice and to take a little girl to love as her own. This love is more than most people hold in their heart.”

Reading stories like Amanda’s has become a welcome tradition for me every Mother’s Day. Time Warner Cable sponsors a countywide student essay contest, and each year I’m moved by the sacrifices many parents make for their children.

Michael Allison, a Vista seventh grader, also was adopted. “When I was 5 and had just started kindergarten,” he wrote, “my mom couldn’t come to pick me up, so I had to go to an after-school program. When she came to pick me up one day, I told her I didn’t like it. The next week she came home and said, ‘I quit my job so I can be with you... You are more valuable to me than money.’”

Their two moms are among 50 to be honored at a luncheon today. They were chosen from 1,183 essay and video submissions — check out the story of Mikaela Hess, of Poway: http://utsd.us/135iygK

Newcomers: Many emigrated to America to make a better life for their children.

Tierrasanta sixth grader Sara Herrera was born in El Salvador. “My mom realized how much danger there was and how many gangs there were in El Salvador. We moved to the United States when I was about 5. But it wasn’t that simple. My mom had an M.D. degree, a great career and had her family there. She gave up all that so that I could be safe and grow up in a better country.”

Jesus Gonzales Moctezuma, a San Pasqual High ninth grader, said his mom still misses Mexico, but tells him: “‘When I feel sad, I remember why we are here… we are able to give you and your sister a better life. I do not want you to have the kind of life I had!’”

The mother of Rancho Bernardo junior, Tracy Caparas, came to the United States from the Philippines with her four children. “She had to work many nights to provide us our basic necessities,” Tracy wrote. “She works in the afternoons and does not come home until the morning of the next day. But, she still forces herself to wake up every morning in order to make us lunch and drive us to school.”

Values: That was the focus of many youth.

Mira Mesa seventh grader Siddhi Patel got a recent lesson in honesty from “Mom.” “Just a week ago we found one hundred dollars on the ground. She told me to pick it up, but instead of putting it in her pocket, she told me to give it to the manager instead. She wanted to be as honest as she could because, what if someone needed that $100 bill?”